Sometimes, the answer can be sufficient even if it is not the norm. Is KT's choice a reverse split once again.

The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) announced Friday the 28-member roster of 10 teams just one day before the season's opening. Among them, KT will start the regular league without the bullpen session with its left hand.온라인카지노

This is a familiar scene. Since its foundation in 2013, KT has suffered from a shortage of left-handed pitchers. Oh Won-seok, who joined the team in a trade with foreign pitcher Enmanuel de Heysus this season, has filled the starting lineup, but the back-door depth is still lacking. Hence, chances are high that KT will continue to lead the season by actively utilizing the reverse split of the bullpen.

"A left-handed pitcher is strong against left-handed hitters," is a myth that has been around for a long time in baseball and is now in progress. However, KT has always ignored this formula. Due to team circumstances, right-handed bullpen was often assigned a left-handed sniper. The team even made an achievement by using the reverse split.

This season is expected to be similar. The presence of Choi Dong-hwan, a newly joined veteran, can be a great help. Starting with him, KT's right-hander bullpen is expected to be a key pillar for blocking left-handed hitters.

During the spring camp, KT intensively checked three bullpen cards: Sung Jae-hun, Jeon Yong-joo, and Park Se-jin. However, all of them failed to join the opening entry. Sung was eliminated from the list of the second camp in Okinawa, Japan, and Park and Jeon ended up moving down to the Futures team (second division) after disappointing performances at an exhibition game.

At the match against Kiwoom in Gocheok on Friday, Jeon Yong-joo faced six batters (30 pitches) and had only 50 percent of strike rate. Park Se-jin, who had no run in one exhibition game, struggled somewhat, throwing 22 pitches while catching three out-counts. Four left-handed bullpen pitchers including Kim Tae-oh started the 2025 season in the Futures League.

The reality is that the left-hander bullpen cannot be actively used right now. In the home Suwon KT Wiz Park and the exhibition game against Doosan on the 17th, which was the last mock test, all the waiting pitchers were right-handers.

The head coach also sighed. KT manager Lee Kang-chul said with a wry smile, "I have no relationship. I have to go without a left-handed bullpen this year as well." "I don't want to give him any confidence, but rather go with right-handed pitchers who can control my ball."

There is something we can trust. Choi Dong-hwan, who changed his uniform at LG Electronics for 16 years, is a must-have name. After the last season, he demanded to release himself in search of an opportunity, and joined KT. He displayed strength against left-handed batters by banking on his big fork ball.

Data shows that he was the best left-handed hitter when LG won the championship two years ago. During the regular season, his batting average against left-handed hitters stood at 0.183 (15 hits in 82 times at bat), far better than that against right-handed hitters at 0.325 (27 hits in 83 times at bat).

In terms of on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS), he is 0.476 against left-handed ones and 0.869 against right-handed ones. He has good pace this season, as he seeks to recover his form and rebound from his new home. At the exhibition game, he displayed a batting average of 0.143 against left-handed ones (one hit from seven times at bat).

Traditional powerhouses are also holding on. They slowed down for a while at exhibition games recently, but their main characters are Sovereignty and Son Dong-hyun. Sovereignty was a natural enemy for left-handed hitters in the KBO League when he was the hold king (31) in 2020. In the same year, the hit rate against left-handed hitters in the regular season was 0.199 (35 hits in 176 times at bat), and the POPS was 0.541. If you find a sense that you liked, you will have nothing to do.

Last year, Son clearly showed signs of reverse split. He posted a batting average of 0.216 (19 hits in 88 times at bat) against left-handed batters in the regular season and 0.313 (31 hits in 99 times at bat) against right-handed batters, giving strong impression to left-handed batters. The postseason was also astounding. In the first game of the wild-card (WC) game against Doosan, he appeared as a firefighter in the bottom of the seventh inning, and pitched perfect pitching in the first ⅔. Among them, the scene that caught tricky left-handed hitters including Cho Soo-haeng, Jeong Su-bin and Jared Young was by far the highlight.

The team breaks the mold. It has always been like that. The team has gone too far in overcoming any obstacles. Still, it is noteworthy that the team produced the best results. In the upcoming 2025 season, we wonder if KT will wisely overcome the gap in the left-handed bullpen through reverse split again.